The Judged Child
by Acadjonne d'la Baie
Summary: During the Time War, the Doctor had a wife called the Judgement. Before he used the Moment to end the war, he used the Chameleon Arch to make the Judgement human, thus saving her and their unborn child. However, when the Doctor finds them fourteen years later, will he convince the Judgement to open up the fob watch, or will he be forced to leave with his hearts shattered?
1. Prologue

The Doctor and his wife embraced each other tightly, and wouldn't let go of each other for what seemed like forever. when they finally broke apart, the Doctor saw tears running down his wife's face, and he found himself fighting back his own. The look in her eyes foretold him of her unspoken sadness. She wished there was another way, but there wasn't. They both knew it. He sighed, and she forced a smile at the Doctor.

"Just do it. We both know what will happen if you don't." Her voice was filled with regret, and the Doctor was finding it hard to look her in the eyes. He walked over to the controls.

"Just, whatever happens, always remember that I love you, and I will never stop loving you." The Doctor chocked the words out, though both of them knew it. He still avoided his wife's gaze, instead focusing on the golden pocket watch with all it's beautiful carvings. The fob watch he would be locking her Time Lady consciousness in. He activated the chameleon arch, and tried to block out the cries of pain that came from his beloved's throat.

The redhead clutched at her slightly swollen middle as the pain consumed her, and she hoped with every fibber of her being that her child, _their_ child, would be unaffected by the amount of pain the mother-to-be felt. Soon, tough, her cries of pain stopped, and she fell unconscious. No longer were the memories of Gallifrey buried deep in her mind; they were instead replaced with false memories of life on Earth, a life that wasn't hers. Her name was not Anais Harding, as the memories in her head told her it was, but she would only remember ever being addressed with this name for a long time.

Only when her Time Lady consciousness was inside the fob watch, and she fell unconscious did the Doctor allow himself to cry. He tried to stop the tears welling up when he picked up her unconscious figure, (which had changed more than he would have liked) and brought her into the TARDIS to take her to Earth, where she'd lead a false life for God knows how long.

The TARDIS landed somewhere in Canada in the year 1999, just outside a suburban house in a rather nice looking neighbourhood. The house where 'Anais' would live was presently empty; there was no one else inside but the Doctor and Anais. He made his way towards the bedroom, and laid the unconscious young woman down on it gently. He slowly pressed a kiss on her forehead, careful not to wake her, and quietly made his way out of the house.

He unlocked the door to the TARDIS and walked inside, locking the door behind him again. He set the coordinates back to where he'd activate the Moment, and this time he could not stop the sobs that racked his throat. He wanted nothing more than to have his wife, _his_ Judgement here with him, embracing him and telling him everything would be okay. He hoped it would be okay.

It had to be. It just absolutely _had to_. The Doctor couldn't bear the thought of not seeing her again, or to miss out on their child's life. The Doctor may have been a coward, but their was one thing he wasn't and _never_ would be. It was the promise he made himself before he activated the moment; before he lost his planet and his people.

The one thing the Doctor vowed he would _never_ be, was a horrible father.


	2. 1 Fourteen Years Later

"Jodelle, hurry up! You're going to be late!" Anais called up to her daughter. A moment later, Jodelle came running down the stairs, her ginger hair flying behind her in its braid, and her bangs covering one of her shinning blue eyes. Anais always wondered where her daughter got her looks; _no one_ else in the family had ginger hair.

Anais looked her daughter over, and noticed her socks. One was striped pink and white, and the other was white with black and grey leopard print designs. Anais was bout to speak, when Jodelle cut her off.

"I know my socks don't really go together, but it's not like anyone's gonna see them." The teen pointed out, slipping on a raggedy old black boot. Her mother took the other one away before Jodelle could put it on, and handed her a pair of faded-looking brown leather boots that had never been worn. Without a word, Jodelle took off her old boot, and put on her new one just as her best friend Jocelyn Duggan knocked on the front door. Anais let her in while Jodelle put on her sweater.

To anyone looking at the two fourteen-year-olds while they stood side by side, one could have sworn they were twins. Jodelle and Jocelyn had known each other since the first grade, and both had ginger hair which they typically wore in braids down their backs, but Jocelyn's bangs were long enough to be included in her braid, and didn't cover her eyes like Jodelle's did; another similarity was that the two had the same shinning blue eyes. Jocelyn was about an inch shorter than Jodelle who stood at 5'7", and had an impossible amount of energy which Jodelle could neither match nor keep up with.

As soon as Jodelle had her sweater on, Jocelyn was pulling her down the sidewalk towards Cunard Junior High, and they made it to school with a good 10 minutes to spare. After reserving their lunches, they left the cafeteria just as the first morning buzzer rang, and the two dashed off towards the gym. Jodelle sat down on her accustomed spot on the gym stage, on a table sitting in the corner to the right, where there was a small cabinet built to house the stage curtains. The other wall had a white board on it; not even the gym teacher knew why it was there, since no one really used it, but he always made sure there were markers so that the students who couldn't participate in class, weather they were Special Needs kids like Jodelle, or they just forgot their gym clothes that day, would have something to do if they hadn't brought anything.

Jodelle sat on the table with her legs crossed beneath her, and a green dry erase marker in her hand. Her right elbow rested on her knee, while the hand connected to that arm was thoughtfully on her chin. She was in what her teachers called a 'thinking trance', where she was positively oblivious to all else, and her thoughts were the only thing she was aware of. Occasionally her hands would trace the most alien and complex symbols the other students had ever seen on the white board, but sometimes she would mutter odd ramblings in a language no one else understood. _Nothing_ could get her to snap out of it; Jodelle usually fell out of her trances when her drawings were finished, which was normally in under an hour.

It was, however, a fairly normal experience for Jodelle to come out of her trance and find the paper or whiteboard she'd been writing on with the mysterious symbols;she had five binders stuffed full of papers with the designs on them, and over 4 dozen pictures of the symbols on her iPod. The curious thing about them was that in no two pictures were the designs in the same place. They always changed, every single line moved either in angle or space, and if she took two picture and put them one on top of the other so she could see through both, she found that the lines _never_ matched up, and always found different intersecting points.

This time, however, there was something more to this drawing than just the possibility of intersecting lines. There were _letters_ on both the top left and bottom right corners of the board; Jodelle studied them for a good ten minutes or more before she realized what they said, since those letters were written in a language she'd never seen the likeness of.

_"Gallifrey falls no more..."_

It was nothing more than a distant whisper in a voice Jodelle couldn't place, but it was as though the speaker (probably a man, Jodelle concluded) was trying to tell her something. It was so cryptic, so alien. What the heck was a 'Gallifrey', even? Still, Jodelle couldn't help but wonder why she heard the voice in the first place, or even who it belonged to?

As far as Jodelle Kodi Smith-Harding was concerned, _something_ was off in Spryfield, and she intended to find out what.


	3. 2 Sledding, and then some

As soon as the school day was over, Jocelyn and Jodelle walked together down to their street, past their friend Dan's Aunts's green bungalow, past Jocelyn's would-be-duplex house, and past Jodelle's house-at-the-corner-at-the-top-of-the-hill. They walked down the next street to where the hill turned to a T-shaped road, and across the street to the local family doctor's office for Jodelle's check-up. The doctor was already waiting by the door for Jodelle. Jocelyn sat down in the doctor's office while the man checked Jodelle's heartbeat, her blood pressure, all the normal things. When it came down to Jodelle getting her needle, the same as she got every two weeks, Jocelyn had to go into the other room and once again indure Jodelle's iron grip.

"Alright, sweetie, you should feel a slight pinch, but that's normal." Dr. Westby said, and Jodelle tightened her grip on Jocelyn's arm as the white blood plasma was injected into her arm. A moment later, the needle withdrew from her arm, and Jodelle's hands fell limp at her sides as she stood up. The doctor led them out the door, calling about seeing Jodelle again in two weeks time and how he would arrange an appointment with Jodelle's mum. Jodelle was still a bit pale as they walked up the hill.

"You're fine, Jodi. There's nothing to be afraid of. There aren't any needles here." Jocelyn tried to reassure her. Jodelle simply shook her head.

"I just wish that someday I could wake up, and this, this thing would be gone. Jocie, I've never even been sledding before!" Jodelle's voice grew slightly louder as she said the last part. Jocelyn gave her a reassuring smile.

"Jodi," She began. "Don't let your hemophilia rule your life, even though it limits you. I don't let my ADHD run my life, and Dan doesn't let her Schizophrenia run hers." Jocelyn pointed out. Jodelle sighed.

By now, it was snowing hard on the two, and they were just meters away from Jodelle's house. The to could already hear the children from their street slidding down the hill. Jocelyn's baby sister Noelle came running up the hill, and the nine year old latched onto her sister's hand.

"Jocie, come sledding with me!" She cried. Before either Jocelyn or Jodelle could protest, the little girl was dragging her older sister down the hill to their house, leaving Jodelle standing in the snow. She muttered to herself, "Stupid little blood problem," and stepped into her sunporch. She took of her jacket, hat and boots, as well as her sweater, before roaming into the living room and settling herself down at the piano. She brushed her fingers against the keys, but not enough to make sound come from them, before opening the duotang of sheet music on the stand. She flipped through to a certain favourite of hers, Turning Tables by Adele, and began to play.

She didn't know all the words, so she didn't sing, but she heard her mother singing along to the notes that Jodelle produced. The gentle notes had an odd way of making Jodelle feel a bit better, though when Anais sang along it lifted her daughter's spirits even more. When Jodelle finished playing Turning Tables, Anais sat down at the piano with her daughter until she needed to make supper at five. Jodelle also got up at that time. Her fingers were numb and aching at the same time from trying (key word: _trying_) to play Stutterin' by Fefe Dobson. It was just that one song she could never learn.

She didn't know why she did it, but when Jodelle got up from the piano, she went to stand at the living room window. She didn't know what she was expecting to see; after all, all the neighbourhood kids were inside eating supper by now. However, when she saw a blue box flicker in and out of existance, and heard the sound of what sounded like a cross between a wheezing asthmatic donkey and fingernails sliding down a chalkboard, she hurriedly put on her winter clothes and ran outside.

~Inside the TARDIS~

Rose smiled as they landed and the familiar sound of the TARDIS died down. She looked aver at the Doctor. He was reading something on the screen next to the console. Rose walked over to him.

"Where are we?" She asked, and the Doctor looked over at her for an instant before turning back to the monitor.

"I don't know." He said. "Just says 'somewhere important'."

Rose nodded. "You wanna find out where 'somewhere important' is?" She asked. The Doctor stepped away from the monitor to look at his companion.

"Sure." came his reply. Rose walked over to the door, and opened it, only to close it again quickly when she saw a young girl examining the TARDIS.

"Doctor, there's someone there." She told him. "She's studying the TARDIS."

"Who?" He asked. Rose peaked out again.

"Young girl, doesn't look to old. Maybe fifteen or so." At this statement, the Doctor went to stand by the door. He opened it and looked out to see the young girl in question looking strait at him, into his eyes. He returned the stare, stepping out, and grabbing Rose's hand, pulling her out with him. He muttered quickly to Rose, "My name is John Smith, if she asks." Rose simply nodded.

"Who are you two?" The girl asked. She didn't have an accent, so the Doctor guessed she was American.

"My name is John Smith, and this is my companion, Rose Tyler. Who are you?" The Doctor stated, confident that his lie was believable. The girl looked straight into Rose's eyes, then the Doctor's, and crossed her arms.

"You're lying." She replied simply, not answering his question.

"No, I'm not." The Doctor said calmly.

"Yes you are.

"No, I'm not."

Yes, you are." Rose decided to intervene at this point.

"How do you know his name isn't John Smith?" She asked. The teen shrugged.

"They don't call me 'alethiometer' for nothin'." Her replies were simple and for the most part, somewhat cryptic, as if she assumed these two could understand her by just looking into her eyes.

"What's that? An alethiometer, what is it?" Rose asked.

"The Golden Compass?" The girl asked.

"Never heard of it." Rose replied.

"Wait, are you two from England or something?" The girl asked.

"Yeah, why?" Rose answered.

"In England it would probably be called Northern Lights. Ever read it?" The teen asked. Rose shook her head, but the Doctor nodded.

"Yeah, I've read it. Good book." The Doctor told her.

"Okay, but seriously, what's your name?" The teen asked the Doctor once again.

"I asked you that a minute ago, and I didn't get my answer yet." He pointed out.

"Jodelle." She said.

"Jodelle who?"

"Jodelle Kodi Smith-Harding. Now, who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor, and before you ask, _just_ the Doctor." He told Jodelle. The young girl was about to say something, when the door to the house behind her opened, revealing a blonde in her mid-forties.

"Jodelle, what are you doing?" She called to Jodelle. The teen in question turned to face the woman.

"These people, I saw them outside and I-" Jodelle was cut off by the woman.

"Well don't just stand there, aren't you going to ask them if they want to come inside?" The woman said.

"That would be lovely, miss..." The Doctor said.

"Ms. Harding. Anais Harding." Ms. Harding told him.

"Ah, a lovely name, Harding." The Doctor complimented. "And we'd love to come inside your lovely home. Thank you for the invitation." The Doctor, Rose, and Jodelle all walked into the house, where Ms. Harding took the Doctor and Rose's coats and hung them up.

The four made their way to the living room, and they all took a seat. Anais started the conversation by asking the Doctor, who had told her his name was John Smith, why he and Rose had been standing out knee-deep in the snow. They somehow then ended up talking about planets that may or may not have existed, and eventually Jodelle got up from the piano bench and went upstairs to her room, the supper on the dinning room table completely forgotten. Eventually, Anais got up as well, if only to put the pasta into the fridge for later. The Doctor looked around the room, and noticed something on the coffee table. A rather old looking box. He stood up and went closer to examine it.

"What's inside this box?" He wondered to himself. Anais walked back into the room.

"You can open it if you want. There's not much to it, really. Just my great grandfather's old pocket watch." Anais explained, noticing the Doctor's interest in the antique box. He gently opened it up, and his eyes widened when he saw the fob watch on the inside. Rose walked over to get a better look.

"What an odd little pocket watch." She mussed. Anais went to stand on the other side of the Doctor, and he handed it to its owner.

"Yes, it is a bit odd. Never been able to open it. Don't know where he got it, no one knew. Not even him." Anais explained, referring to her grandfather. She held it up to her ear.

"If you listen closely, you can hear the watch tick, but it's been ticking for as long as I can remember. Never changed the battery or anything. Just won't stop." The Doctor looked over at Anais.

"Open it." He told her. She looked over at him.

"What?" She asked, dumbfounded.

"Open it." He repeated.

"I don't see the point in this." She told him firmly.

"Just do it. If you open it, then maybe you'll find out why it never stops ticking." The Doctor told Anais. She sighed.

"Alright, fine. But if it breaks, you owe me a new pocket watch."

"Deal." Anais looked at the watch for a moment, swallowed, and open up the latch. The ticking grew loud enough for Rose and the Doctor to hear, then stopped completely. Anais opened the cover, and then dropped the pocket watch all together, clutching her head in pain. She let out a small scream, and then a golden light, much like regeneration energy, consumed Anais, and momentarily blinded both Rose and the Doctor. Jodelle came rushing down the stairs, and when she saw Anais in a golden heap of light on the living room floor, she smacked the Doctor's arm as hard as she could. Granted, it wasn't very hard, but the Doctor still felt it.

"What?" He asked, acting confused, though he knew Jodelle could see right through it.

"What did you _do_ to her?! What did you do to my mom?!" Jodelle screamed. A moment later, before the Doctor could react, the golden light died down, leaving a completely different looking person from Anais Harding sitting on the ground, rubbing her head.

This new person had bright ginger hair, the same as Jodelle's, and the same blue eyes. She was stick thin as well, another trait that matched Jodelle, and she was about 5'8" in height. While Jodelle was trying to hold back angry tears at her mother's disappearance, the Doctor smiled as he recognized this new woman.

"Dyff." He said. It was almost a whisper, but this person, this 'Dyff', looked up at the Doctor and immediately threw her arms around him.

"Theta, I don't believe it. You're here." She spoke just as loud as the Doctor had, and she held the same tone of disbelief that the Doctor's voice had just held.

"Did you ever doubt it, Dyfarniad?" He asked. Dyff shook her head. Just then, Jodelle decided she needed answers.

_"What the hell is going on here?!"_


	4. 3 An Explanation, mostly

"_What the hell is going on here?!"_

Jodelle's scream brought the Doctor ad Dyfarniad out of their trances, and Dyff walked over to where her daughter stood. She helped Jodelle to sit down on the couch, just in case, and knelt down before her. Dyff sighed, and spoke a moment later.

"Jodelle, sweetie, I need you to keep an open mind. Can you do that for me, Jodi?" Dyff asked her daughter. She got a nod in response.

The Doctor smiled as he watched Dyff try to explain the whole 'Time Lady trapped in a fob watch' thing to their daughter. She always had been good with the younger generation.

"Wait, so, we're aliens? How? What? This is-" Jodelle was about to say more, but Dyff already knew what her response would be.

"I know. A bit confusing, yeah?"

"Yeah, just a bit. So, if we're, aliens..." There was a brief pause, though all four people in the room knew it was a lot for Jodelle to take in. "What planet are we from, anyway?"

Dyff gave her daughter a half-hearted smile. "Well, technically, you're from Earth. You were born here. Your father and I-" Jodelle looked at her mother incredulously.

"My father's gone. He's dead and gone and buried. He died before I was born." She said. It was mostly to convince herself that what she knew was the truth was really that- the truth. Dyff noticed this, and began to rub her daughter's arm in an attempt to comfort her. The Doctor raised his head, and his eyes met Jodelle's.

"No, Jodelle, your father isn't dead. He's right here." Dyff gestured to the Doctor. "See? Your dad's here, Jodi. So am I, we're both here." Dyff told her in the most soothing voice she could muster. For a moment, it looked like Jodelle might stand up and pull her parents into a hug, but no such luck. Jodelle shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.

"No. Just, no. This, this dude- no way he's my dad. He just, he just can't be. Never." Jodelle couldn't believe what she was hearing. This 'Doctor'- this dude- was supposed to be her father now. No- he couldn't be. Her father, her _real_ father had died a few months before she was born. And no one could ever replace him.

Sure, she'd never met her real dad, but that didn't mean she just went around to random people her mother knew and asked them "Are you my dad?" That would be ridiculous, and while Jodelle was many things- really, who isn't?- she was not ridiculous. Not in that sense, anyway. She shook her head again.

"Jodelle, I know this is a lot to take in, but-" Jodelle cut her mother off by suddenly shooting up from her seat and bolting up the stairs, sobbing. The Doctor was about to go after her when Dyff grabbed him by the arm.

"Just give her some time, Theta. She'll come around, don't worry. She'll be fine." Dyff told him. When he didn't reply, she pulled him into a hug.

"Don't worry Theta. She'll be fine. Jodelle's always fine."


End file.
